The Drive
by Prince of None
Summary: Two friends sneak out to go to a party.


"Hold up dude, can you even drive?"

"Poorly."

Ricky grinned at me, a mischievous gleam in his eye. I'd grown accustomed to this specific expression over the years that I'd known the short, scrawny boy of fifteen that sat next to me. It appeared upon his face just before he did something potentially life-threatening. I suppose it was a mark of the kind of people we both were that I was perfectly used to it.

"So you said something about a party in Englewood; would you care to elaborate?" I asked Ricky as he gripped the steering wheel as if he'd just floored the gas, even though we remained motionless in his parents' driveway.

"Yeah, you know Shannon?" He said, his eyes not moving from the street visible through the windshield.

"Uh, the blonde one?" I said uncertainly. In all honesty, I had no idea who Shannon was.

"Nah man, Shannon White; the eight outta ten in our Spanish class." He clarified. Oh. Her. She was, to use the language of the class, _muy caliente_.

"Ah, her. Is it her party or something?" I asked, my eyes shifting around the cul-de-sac in which the car was currently parked.

"Yeah, something about her parents being out of town and accidentally leaving the liquor cabinet unlocked." He replied.

Liquor?

"Wait, are people gonna be drinking at this party?" I inquired, my brain already screaming along as it processed this new information. I'd never so much as taken a sip of my dad's beer, and now I was going to be expected to ingest large amounts of alcohol?

"Fucking duh, Rob. I heard Lennie is gonna bring some of his stash as well." Rick said, his grin growing impossibly larger. Lennie was the drug dealer of the school. Degenerates flocked to him like some sort of messiah.

I shook my head, attempting to clear it of hesitation. This was supposed to be a fun night. The first of Spring Break-a time for my peer group to intake large amounts of mind-altering substances and then copulate recklessly. It had never interested me in the same way that it had Rick, but I'd decided to give it a try. "These are our teenage years." As he had often reminded me.

"Okay. Then are we actually gonna go?" I was attempting to expedite the process, like a child eating their veggies first in order to get them out of the way.

"Yeah, hang on. Becca's gonna text me when our parents go to sleep." The exclusive "our" of course; Rick's older sister Becca was extremely accommodating to her brother's, well, _escapades_. Perhaps because she remembered doing the same when she was his age.

Conveniently enough, it was only seconds later that Rick's phone lit up. The screen displayed a text from Becky: "_your good to go kiddo_"

Her atrocious grammar and punctuation aside, my heart raced even faster than it had been.

"Allllllllrighty! Let's get this show on the road!" Ricky said as he slotted the stolen keys into the ignition and turned them. The engine whined a bit, but started nonetheless.

"Listen to her pur." He said, turning to me with a smile. It was less a pur and more a groan, I thought. The old junker was barely still in one piece, but he had assured me it would get us to where we needed to be.

"So let's go." I said.

"Hang on, I can't remember which gear is drive."

"Second to last."

"Oh yeah, thanks Robbie."

I sighed as he put the car into drive and applied pressure to the gas. The car jolted forward and Rick quickly turned the wheel, attempting to guide it safely into the street.

My stomach lurched, I felt like I would be sick. It wasn't that I didn't trust Rick's driving skills.

Actually, yes it was.

"Okay, now we're cooking with gas!" Rick said. He had managed to pull the car out of the driveway and onto the cul-de-sac.

"Well done, my friend. Now all there is to do is drive eight miles to Englewood." I said.

"Child's play." He said with a chuckle.

"Is it? Because it looks like you're headed for that lamppost."

He shifted the wheel slightly, altering our path and routing us out of the cul-de-sac.

"There. Anything else I should know about, genius?"

"I suppose we should be wary of our fuel consumption. Returning the car with an empty tank would be quite the giveaway."

"Way ahead of you, Rob. There's a gas canister in the back that I'm gonna fill the tank with once we get back."

We were on the road at that point, houses whizzed past as we drove further and further away from Rick's house. l chanced a glance at the speedometer.

45 miles per hour.

Okay, that's not too bad. It's only ten above the speed limit, and it's not like anyone's out to see us.

Just then a green pickup truck drove past us in the opposite direction.

"Rick, would you potentially consider slowing down?"

"Nah man, that defeats the purpose of driving. We're in a car to get where we're going faster, no?"

"Yeah, point made." I sighed.

"Good, so let's go faster!" He said, flooring the gas. If we weren't on an abandoned straightaway I doubt we'd have survived, but Rick was somehow able to keep the car under control as we approached 100 miles per hour.

This did nothing to lessen my panic, however, as I gripped the handrail for dear life. I began to cry out in protest of Rick's maniacal behavior. Something stopped me, though.

A smile was appearing on my face. I questioned my sanity, surely Rick had somehow infected me with his bizarre sense of fun, because I was having fun. Instead of crying out, I yelled at the top of my lungs. A primal shout of pure thrill.

"YEAHHHHH!"

"Now you're getting it, Robbie! WOOOOOOO!"

I laughed like a madman and looked at Rick; he was half focusing on the road in front of him, half beaming at me. I found myself mirroring his expression.

"I can see it!" He shouted exuberantly.

"See what?"

"That look in your eyes, I know it damn well!"

* * *

I grinned at my friend Rob.

He was always such a sheltered kid; strict Catholic parents, barely any electronics, not even very many books. It didn't stop him from being the smartest guy I knew, though.

And now I could see it in his eyes. The way he saw the world was finally like me. He could finally see all the opportunities and experiences available to him, and he loved it. I'd taught him well.

I refocused on the road to find that we were approaching a sharp left turn. My arms reacted before I did, jerking the wheel to the left. I was somehow able to keep this pile of scrap on the road.

As we rounded the shoulder, Robbie and I screamed at the top of our lungs. We were half terrified, and half ecstatic.

It was the best feeling in the world, and I could finally share it with my best friend.

**A/N:** I just whipped this up in class based on an offhand remark I made to my friend about sucking at driving. Little did I know it would turn into this.

But yeah; I hope you guys, gals, and non binaries enjoyed. If you wanna show/tell me how much you enjoyed, feel free to favo(u)rite and/or post a review. I'll probably end up posting more original work here, purely because it's where my audience is and I want to share _everything_ I write with all of you.

In closing, I really want to make one thing clear: Enjoy life, because there's a good chance it's all you're gonna get.


End file.
